The RATP group announced on Friday that it had won a contract to develop and operate the fiber optic infrastructure within the future Grand Paris metro, for an amount of 500 million euros and for a period of 25 years.
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The Grand Paris Express must connect over 200 km to dozens of suburban municipalities, the research centers of the Saclay plateau and the two Parisian airports of Roissy to the north and Orly to the south.
The project includes four new automatic metro lines, numbered 15 to 18, as well as extensions of line 14 - which should open in stages by 2030 -.
This contract, won by the RATP Solutions Ville subsidiary, includes the operation, marketing and maintenance of this very high-speed network, according to the press release.
Deployment of mobile coverage
“
It will help galvanize access to very high speed in the areas served by the Grand Paris Express.
In total, the entire 200 km of the Grand Paris Express will house optical infrastructures irrigating the 68 stations and station districts of the future automatic metro network
, ”highlights the RATP.
The facilities "
will directly benefit travelers of the new metro by facilitating the deployment of mobile coverage
", but also "
more than 20,000 companies, administrations and research centers.
The first customers will be connected to this new network at the end of 2022
”, it is specified.
“
More than 175,000 kilometers of optical fiber will be available under the new metro lines as soon as they open.
The network thus buried will make it possible to offer highly reliable services,
”added the Société du Grand Paris (SGP), the public body responsible for building the structure, in a separate press release.
“
The Grand Paris Numérique is also a technical feat that will allow millions of Grand Paris Express travelers to have access to a quality mobile telephone network on the entire route, including in areas close to 50 meters deep
”, underlined Jean-François Monteils, chairman of the management board of the SGP, quoted in the press release.
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This "
first major contract for our very young subsidiary RATP Solutions Ville demonstrates the relevance of the group's development strategy beyond our core business which remains transport
", greeted Catherine Guillouard, CEO of RATP, a group who recalls to be "
also a fiber expert
" with "
already more than 170,000 km of optical fiber deployed on the historic RATP network
".
